The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-12-29
THE GREAT AUGUST RAIN.


Ihe Immense Quantity OF Watcr Which
7 Fell Over . Wide Area.
From the Hartford (Ct.) Times.
1t is not easy for anybody to real.
ize, or even to correctly imagine, the
vast amount of water which is pour,
ed out of the sky in great August
rain, like this one which during the
first three or four days of the present
month has deluged SO many and so
widely-separated parts of our country.
1t is not easy to understand in the
realizing" sense, however fully we
may comprehend the fact intellect.
ually, how SO much solid water can ba
supended in the form of invisible, va
por in the air. True, it is no longer
invisible, when it has been condensed
in the form of heavy rain clouds, but
it was all there, invisibly-somewher
in the wide realm of air-before it be,
came thus condensed. Take the
ending part of that great storm
for an example-what must have
been the actual amount of water
that was poured down, from Chicago
to Maine, from Maryland and the
Ohio to the White Mountains? 1t
rained seemingly as never before, in
all those regions. Throughout the
greater part of the Middle States it
made destructive river floods. In the
region about Chicago it amounted to a
precipitation of about five and one
much less, and New York State re-
ceived its share OF the general drench-
ing. Here in Southern New England the
downpour was such as was never ex-
ceeded-if indeed it was ever equaled. In
this immediate region the rainfall in one
continuous rain, from Monday after
noon to 3 o'clock Tuesday morning,
amounted almost to 6 inches. The
great October rain, of the 1st and I'd
of October, 1869, which such ruinous
work throughout Connecticut (chiefy
by the immense precipitation on the
second day., did not exhibit such
steady and tremendous downpour as
that of Tuesday, August 4, 1885, be-
tween the hours of l and 3 O'Clock
in the morning. The volume of this
August rain is shown in the flooded
streams, which everywhere continue
to be flooded long after the usual time
for rain floods to disappear. The
Connecticut rives itself has kept rising
for day and half after the storm,
the rain having added about six feet
to It's height. 1t was heavy rain in
the White mountains, the gauge at the
Signal Service station on the summit
showing four and one-half inches.
This great rain came inland from
the Gulf of Mexico. Following the Mis-
sissippi valley northward, the storm
was central at Detroit. 1t extended
eastward all the way from the Missis
sippi river to the Atlantic seaboard-
pouring as huge a food upon New
England as upon most of the great in
termediate breadth of country.
1t is impossible to estimate any such
quantity ofwater. Even of the amount
that was poured out upon our own
little State, it is impossible to get any
adequate idea. If we were to imagine
the area of Connecticut to be a perfect
ly fiat, level surface, and the average
amount of rain for that one storm to
be not five, but not quite three inches
what, then, would be the aggregate
quantity of water that was emptied
from the clouds upon our area of not
quite 5000 square miles? Who can
get any adequate conception OF it?
Emptied in the same time into the
worlds greatest river, it would affect
the volume of the Amazon. And this
for only one little spot in the area OF
the actual downpour. Connecticut,
compared with the area, covers less re-
lative space than dinner-plate on
big dinner table. 1t was almost as if
the great lakes had burst their bounds
and simultaneously emptied them
selves upon the country on this side